Shading

[T-Bone]

hello, as some of you know, i am ATTEMPTING to make some weapon mods, i have made a Dragunov SVD, and i geuss its ok, but tis a little flat....i was wondering if any good modders here havwe any tips on how to shade. I have no real experience with art or drawing anything for that matter, so i dont know the first thing about how to shade something. Please Help. Thank you so much in advance

[Svirin Kerath]

do you have photoshop?
=3

[T-Bone]

nope.....i have GIMP, and MS paint

[Vltava]

Pick a light source, like from the top or the left. Make all the pixels that would be brighter due to the light, as in real life, lighter by hitting Colors, Edit Colors. A menu will appear. Click Define Custom Colors and the color you have currently selected as primary (left-click) will appear. To change the brightness, just select a higher Lum value, or select a higher value on the bar to the right. Then hit OK, and you'll have your custom color selected. Shade accordingly.

[Keron Cyst]

Vltava hit the spot dead-on. Usually lumination from pixel to pixel is incremented by 20 or 30, depending on how drastic the shading is or just how much space you're given to work with.

[Plonkoon]

Photoshop makes it a lot easier.  I could never stand doing any graphics with paint.   

[Fraggy]

Paint is good !

but PS is way better tough :p
just pick black as color,
and set the opacity to 10 percent..
try that

[FliesLikeABrick]

Photoshop makes it a lot easier.  I could never stand doing any graphics with paint.   

things like this are accomplished just as easily in the GIMP as they are in PS (and he says he has the GIMP)

[T-Bone]

i do have gimp, but how does it make it alot easier?

[xtishereb]

You can use GIMP to get the color of a pixel, then edit the color to give it shading, then replace the pixel. It's a little easier than it sounds, plus it's fun. That's how I do it, anyway.

[T-Bone]

cool, im not too good at GIMP, but im getting better. Im starting to figure out some really helpful stuff. Thanks

[Keron Cyst]

i do have gimp, but how does it make it alot easier?

You can simply use a brushstroke and paint more on spots you want darker instead of working with Paint's hard-edged colors (that is, they don't blend smoothly; whatever color you pick, it just smacks it rawly down on the graphic) and going to Edit Colors all the time.

But of course one can fire up Paint instantly, whereas The GIMP takes a bit to load...

[Svirin Kerath]

lol. if you're patient enough to shade a weapon, you should be patient enough for a program to start X)

[Father Grigori]

I have a memorypicture that there was a shading tutorial in the old forums. :/ But im not sure. Maybe ill make an complete for all of you soon.